Almost a Bride

by Jo Watson

  We walked in silence for a while before I decided to broach the subject again with a question that had been troubling me throughout dinner. “Do you really not believe in love?”

  “Nope.” His answer came out fast, and sounded so matter-of-fact.

  “Do you think it was because of your parents?”

  “Oh please, now you just sound like my school counselor.”

  “Well, maybe she was right?”

  “He was a total quack. He actually suggested that I write a letter to my six-year-old self and forgive him.”

  “Forgive him for what?” As I asked, the smile on Chris’s face faltered again. But only for a second. He quickly recovered from whatever feeling he was having.

  He shrugged playfully. “Like I said, the guy was a total weirdo. Never listen to someone that wears handmade leather sandals.”

  “Why?”

  “Come on, Annie. Don’t you know anything? Only organic-vegan nudists and people who think they’re the second coming wear sandals like that.”

  I burst out laughing. Chris was funny, no doubt about it. But in the short time I’d known him, I also realized he had an uncanny ability to steer the conversation away from anything vaguely serious by using humor. Not that I minded, God knows I needed the laughs. But it just made me aware that there was so much more to Chris than met the eye, and so much more to this story of his. But I left it alone and played along; I hadn’t had this much fun in ages.

  “My cousin Lilly went to a therapist once who kept repeating her name…” I cleared my throat and put on my best therapist voice. “Lilly, what is your first memory? And how did that make you feel, Lilly?”

  “See! Besides, we men aren’t meant to talk about our feelings. We’re meant to grow beards and chop wood and wrestle animals to the ground. Feelings are for you womenfolk.”

  “While we’re cooking your dinner barefoot and polishing your shoes?”

  “Exactly,” he said.

  “Okay, Chris.” I stopped walking. “I just want to get this straight…so you don’t believe in real love and are never going to get married?”

  “Exactly. And even if I wanted to tie the knot, I probably never would, because I’ve never been in love and I’m pretty sure I’m incapable of those feelings.”

  “What?” I was taken aback by his statement. “How’s that even possible? How old are you?”

  “Why, how old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven. You?”

  “Thirty-three.”

  “Okay, okay…” I was trying to gather my thoughts. This was possibly one of the most bizarre things I’d heard in a while. Who’s never been in love? “So you’ve never dated before?”

  “I’ve dated. I’ve had a few serious girlfriends, but it was never love. They all ended badly, as you can imagine. They all thought they would be the girl that would change me. Make me believe in love, melt my cold heart or something…” He tapered off.

  I thought about those poor women, desperately in love and waiting for reciprocation that never came. It all seemed kind of cruel to me. I mean, why even get into a relationship if you didn’t see it going anywhere?

  “I never led any of them on, if that’s what you’re thinking. I told them all up front that I don’t believe in love,” he added quite quickly and defensively, as if he had guessed what I’d been thinking.

  My feelings of pity then switched allegiances; it was Chris that I now felt sorry for. I wondered what else could have happened in his life to make him feel like this. Even if he was working very hard at denying it, everyone wanted to be loved.

  “Look what happened to you. All in the name of love. Don’t you wish you’d never fallen in love with Trevv in the first place?”

  I thought hard about his question, and while it was true that I’d been devastated, and it had affected almost every aspect of my life, I still believed in love and ultimately wanted it one day, despite my current self-imposed dry spell.

  “Nah, I like Valentine’s hearts and soppy sentimental cards.” I smiled and Chris smiled back. “If you don’t believe in love, I’m pretty sure I can change your mind. All you have to do is hang out with my cousin Lilly and her new BF Damien. Trust me, they are sooo in love it’s almost obscene.”

  “But that’s only an illusion. They think they’re in love. But trust me, when the chemicals stop flowing it will wilt and die like a dead flower.”

  “Whoa! Cynical much?”

  He smiled at me again. “Realistic.”

  “So all relationships are doomed to become dead flora?”

  “Look at yours.”

  “But not all relationships are like that,” I defended.

  “Name one famous person that hasn’t been divorced.”

  I started thinking about it and he was right. Every single celebrity I could think of had gotten divorced, many more than twice. Even my parents had gotten divorced, and Lilly’s mother was better than Joan Collins at getting divorced. She’d basically turned it into an Olympic sport.

  “But that’s terrible proof. Everyone knows celebrities aren’t real people anyway,” I said.

  “I’m not so sure about that. I dated a semifamous actress once, and that pasta strainer she threw across the kitchen felt very real to me.”

  “And why was she tossing kitchen utensils at you?”

  “It probably had something to do with my previously mentioned philosophy on love. Or perhaps she just hated the pasta strainer.”

  I laughed again. We’d been talking so much that I hadn’t noticed how far we’d walked until I turned around and saw that the lights from the resort looked like glowing pinpricks. It dawned on me how completely alone we were.

  Behind us stood what looked like a large, deserted beach house. You could see that it had been abandoned for quite some time. Vines and palm trees were growing through empty windowpanes and doorways. It was nothing more than a mere skeleton, and paint was peeling off its dry bones in thick chunks. But it was eerily beautiful, in a sad way. The floor of the patio was completely covered in white sand from the years of wind blowing through the empty rooms.

  “Come, let’s go check it out,” Chris said, striding across the beach and beckoning for me to follow. The house was designed in that typical Mauritian style. Deep wraparound verandas with overhanging roofs propped up by imposing columns. I could only imagine what it must have looked like in its heyday.

  There’s always something creepy about an abandoned house, and as you well know, they are the common start to many a horror film. Teens find an abandoned cabin in the woods, and three scenes later someone is chopping off their arms with a chainsaw.

  And the inside was even creepier. Bits of broken furniture lay scattered across the floor like old dry bones, and the walls were decorated with graffiti. We moved through the rooms, old leaves and God only knows what else crunching under our feet, until we reached a steep staircase.

  “Watch your step,” Chris said suddenly, taking me by the hand and helping me up the dark staircase. We walked up to the top and peered around the corner.

  “Ooohh.” Chris’s eyes lit up with devilishness. “What do we have here?”

  And there, seated on the floor, were about six teenagers, not older than fourteen, playing spin the bottle. We both watched for a moment or two as a pimply-looking boy with braces spun the bottle. It came to rest pointing at a pretty young brunette with a Cindy Crawford mole. They exchanged awkward, spastic looks before their friends started cheering them on. I cringed as they leaned in and engaged in what was probably the worst kiss I’d ever seen. Clearly these were first—or very near first—kisses.

  Chris and I struggled to hold back a laugh.

  “Watch this,” Chris whispered in my ear before jumping out from the stairwell.

  “And what’s going on here?” he boomed in an authoritative voice. The reaction was immediate; the kids went scrambling in all directions. One of the girls started shouting like a stuck record, “Please don’t tell our parents. Plea
se don’t tell our parents. Please don’t tell our parents.”

  I couldn’t help my loud laughter.

  “Just joking,” Chris said. “You guys carry on as you were. We were just leaving.”

  “So you’re not going to tell our parents?” the wide-eyed, frightened girl asked with a kind of desperation in her voice.

  “I don’t even know who your parents are.” This seemed to allay their fears. Chris and I then turned, ran down the stairs, and bolted for the beach. We were barely able to contain our laughter, and the second we got outside, it erupted.

  “Did you see their little faces,” he said, falling to the sand. “It looked like they’d just seen a ghost.”

  “That was so cruel, by the way. You’re a sick sadist. Imagine how you would have felt at that age if an adult did that to you!” We were still laughing as we both settled comfortably onto the sand.

  “God, I remember my first kiss as if it were yesterday. It was a total disaster. Also during a game of spin the bottle.” Chris’s laughter had tapered off as he spoke. “The girl actually told me I was a bad kisser. I don’t really blame her, though. I’m sure I sucked—literally, too. Do you know how many years it took me to pluck up the courage to kiss another girl again?”

  Chris looked at me and smiled. It made me shift in the sand. All this talk of kissing was giving me a strange feeling. This was one of those conversations that could easily lead to loaded innuendo and flirtation, if you wanted it to. Lilly’s words ran through my head again, a guy to practice on.

  I gazed at Chris; he definitely fit the bill. He didn’t believe in love and since I’d sworn off relationships, there was no way I was going to fall in love with him, either. He was the perfect candidate for an innocent practice flirt.

  Okay, here goes nothing, Annie.

  “And now?” I tried to make my voice sound whispery and sexy. “Has your kissing improved much?” I let the implication hang in the air.

  Chris turned and looked at me intensely. “Are you trying to flirt with me, Annie?” His voice was equally whispery and I was wondering what the hell I’d just started here. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea.

  “Uh, sort of.” This was suddenly very embarrassing. “I was just seeing if I still had it. You know, practicing. It’s been so long.”

  “It’s been a while for me, too, actually.”

  “Really?”

  Chris nodded and gave me this smile that lit up his eyes. I knew his eyes were blue, but I hadn’t truly noticed how damn blue they really were. The light blue color jumped out against large jet-black pupils.

  “You were pretty good, by the way. You’ve still got it. I would have definitely gone for it.”

  “Good to know,” I reciprocated with a smile and started to wonder what would have happened if he’d taken the bait and said something like, “Why don’t you be the judge of that yourself” and leaned in for a kiss. That beard! I’d never kissed a guy with so much facial hair, and all I could think about was the possible prickliness of it all.

  We sat in silence for a while. Something strange was happening. The innocent flirting had definitely changed the mood between us. Thankfully Chris finally broke it.

  “So, have you dated since Nipple-Gate?”

  “Oh my God! I also call it Nipple-Gate!” I shrieked.

  “What can I say? Great minds.” We shared a tiny look of recognition.

  “One. But it was a disaster.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m pretty sure I scared him shitless. So I’ve officially removed myself from the market until I’m sane enough to date again.”

  “That must be hard. You probably get asked out a lot.”

  I felt a slight fluttering at that comment, even though it was totally untrue.

  “Truth is…you know how it took you courage to kiss someone again, because you thought you weren’t good at it? Well, that’s kind of how I feel.”

  “That you’re not good at kissing?” he asked.

  “No, not good at…you know…Since Trevv needed to get it somewhere else…and like that.” I couldn’t believe how honest I’d just been with a total stranger, but somehow he seemed to inspire a comfort that I hadn’t felt with anyone before.

  Chris turned and looked at me, as I focused all my attention and energy on a tiny purple shell that was lying in the sand. I felt way too vulnerable right now to make eye contact. And I was regretting this conversation and hoped he would deflect with humor, as opposed to going into a lengthy discussion about my sexual ability. Why had I even told him that?

  “Well, we could do it right here if you want and I could rate you out of ten.”

  We both burst out laughing again. I hadn’t laughed like this in months.

  “Have you seen Trevv since the incident?”

  I hung my head at the mere thought. “Yes. Twice.”

  “And?”

  “It was sooo bad. I made a complete idiot of myself.”

  “I feel your pain. I’m no stranger to embarrassment, either.”

  I was about to ask him what had happened, when he jumped in again quickly. Avoidance alert.

  “So tell me of your embarrassing woes.”

  “My woes are great indeed,” I said.

  “I can handle them.”

  I looked at Chris; there was something so nonthreatening about him. He seemed like the kind of person you could tell anything to. Besides, the memory had been bubbling away for far too long, and it was dying to come out.

  “I haven’t told anyone this before. It’s so totally pathetic.”

  Chris leaned in.

  “I went to his house in the middle of the night and just stared at him and Tess through the kitchen window, for ages. Watching them have a romantic, candlelit dinner, watching them holding hands and kissing. And then I collapsed in the rosebushes and cried like a baby in the mud. How much more pathetic could I get?”

  “That’s not pathetic, Annie. That’s just what heartbreak does to you. You should have seen what it did to my mom. Just another reason I avoid it at all costs.”

  I nodded. “And the next time I saw Trevv, I ended up telling him I was seeing someone, when I wasn’t. I made the guy up on the spot, some imaginary boyfriend called Boyden. And it gets worse, apparently Boyden is from Australia. And is very good in bed.”

  Chris laughed next to me.

  “Hey, it’s not funny.” I nudged him playfully. “If I ever bump into Trevv, I’m going to have to somehow magically conjure myself a man from Down Under, or face even more horrific embarrassment. And I think I’ve endured enough to last me ten lifetimes.”

  “Boyden? Is that even a name?”

  “Apparently. I looked it up after the fiasco. It’s Anglo-Saxon. It means ‘messenger.’”

  This caused another laugh. “I can just see you Googling it the second you had a chance.”

  “I phoned my friend Stormy-Rain—”

  “Wait, that’s a real name?”

  “Apparently her mother gave it to her on the day she was born on a green hill, inside a nudist colony during a storm.”

  “You have interesting friends.”

  “I do, maybe you’ll meet them. Two of them should be here soon. Anyway, Stormy believes that the meaning of names is as important as where you’re born and the star sign you’re born under. You can tell everything about a person with those three things.” I rolled my eyes playfully. “She’s really weird and we all love her to death for it.”

  “I wonder what she’d say about Gemini Sven Christophersen of German descent?”

  “Who’s thaa…Oh, you?” I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “You can see why I chose Chris instead?” He quickly looked down at his watch and tapped it in my direction, and I was surprised to see it was already after twelve.

  “It’s getting late. I need my beauty sleep.” He stood and helped me up.

  We walked back to the resort in absolute silence. Strangely it wasn’t one of those awkward
silences that has you constantly thinking about what to say to break it. It was comfortable. So comfortable that I hadn’t really noticed we were back until Chris pointed it out.

  “Well this is me”—his words brought me back to reality—“my room.”

  I looked at it. “Holy shit! You got the big one.”

  “That’s how I roll, baby. Deluxe presidential suite. There’re only two.” He was deliberately hamming it up for my benefit.

  I eyed him up and down—not the kind of guy I would have pegged for a presidential suite.

  “What does it look like inside?” But I didn’t wait for him to reply or offer. I’d never been in a presidential suite before and was already halfway through the door.

  Chris clapped his hands together loudly and rubbed them triumphantly. “Score! And I didn’t even have to ply you with alcohol to get you to come back to my room.”

  “Ha-ha. You wish!” I said, winking at him. We’d sort of naturally fallen into this witty repartee, which I was finding really enjoyable. The kind you might have with a platonic friend you’ve known for years. Trevv and I had never laughed this much. Maybe in the beginning, but over the two years that laughter had been replaced by a certain silent formality. Especially toward the end. Clear warning sign, I’d just chosen to ignore it.

  I’d ignored and overlooked a lot about Trevv actually. Why? His image, his outward success, and good looks had gone a long way in making me feel better about myself. If I had a man like that on my arm…That seemed so shallow now. But I guess that was how I’d rolled.

  Chris’s room was quite frankly ridiculous. Over-the-top. Plush, lush, delish. I didn’t know quite where to look first. A massive four-poster bed was pushed up against one of the walls, and a huge open-plan living room came sprawling off it. On the other side of the bed, a palm-filled atrium with massive open shower and Jacuzzi bath seemed to call my name.

  “What’s up there?” I pointed to the curved staircase that wound its way through the middle of the living space.

  “I haven’t really been up there properly.”